Experimental Film

I had been circling Gemma Files Experimental Film for a while before finally picking it up. I’m not sure what stayed my hand, but I think it was something in the synopsis that made me wary. It might be that the synopsis is so darn long. It might be that it puts the emphasis on Lois as a mom, or that it seems to indicate that a large part of the central conflict in the story will be protecting a child, neither of which appeal to me. Whatever the case, I put Experimental Films aside again and again, only to come back to it because there was something intriguing about it that I couldn’t quite quit. I like the idea of haunted film. The ancients thought mirrors were a window to another world. And what is a film but a dim reflection of reality, capturing images of the long dead, presenting worlds unknown and otherwise unknowable? And the film in this book is an old one, very old, locked on silver nitrate film, a medium so flammable that it cost many a life in the early days of the cinema. So what the heck, I thought. Why not give it a shot?I’m certainly glad I did.First of all, it turns out my initial concerns were wholly unfounded. Lois is much more than a mom. Her domestic situation plays a role in the book and is, at times, one of the things that motivates her, but it is largely in the background. Lois is an independent woman pursuing a mystery that is obscure and potentially world-changing all at once. On the trail of a film from the earliest days of movie-making that seems to portray a forgotten Wendish god (obscurity squared you might say), Lois finds herself locked in a struggle of Lovecraftian proportions.Compellingly readable and filled with interesting tidbits about movie culture, this winding tale will keep you on the edge of your seat from the opening title to the final credits. Definitely recommended.P.S. If you enjoyed this book, check out Cigarette Burns, one of my favorite entries from the excellent Masters of Horror series.

Experimental Film takes a while to get going, and, at least for me, requires you to endure a main character that is not that likable. That being said, the underlying story is incredibly well constructed and told.The choice of Lois as the narrator was a canny choice for this uncanny tale. The pattern repetitions in the story are so well thought out and presented. I am fairly certain that this is a book that I will return to in a few years to see how it reads with the knowledge of how it plays out.If the pacing would have been a little tighter in this book I would definitely have given it 5 stars, but it's an incredibly solid 4 star book. If you like weird fiction you should enjoy this book.************** SORTA SPOILERS BELOW **************I just want to say that the last 15 - 20% of this novel is the best version of The King In Yellow that I've read yet. It is so well done and the storytelling is especially sharp and powerful. If you are interested in the KiY then you owe it to yourself to read this book. I can't recommend it enough.

There is a lot about Gemma Files’s Experimental Film that feels like it was written just for me, and I suppose a good bit of that is due to interests the author and I share with the main character of the novel: Lois Cairns. We’ve all been teachers of film history and screenwriting, and we’ve all wondered whether or not we would ever make our own mark on this field of art and criticism we love so much. That’s more direct connection than I often get with authors and main characters, so I wondered idly more than once whether it was unduly affecting my reaction to Experimental Film.The answer, I think, is no. There is so much to love about Files’s novel, so many layers to peel back, that these chance synchronicities cannot possibly account for my total reaction. If you are fascinated by film history (Canadian or otherwise) and obscure folklore and Edwardian spiritualism and gloriously broken people who you cannot help but root for, there is a lot here for you to devour. Files treats all of these topics seriously and confidently, even though in many ways these elements are (only?) grease for the inner workings of a story that will scour you. The dual engines of this novel are Files’s immense power to evoke and convey the weird and her intimate and clear-eyed ability to present a main character who is the mother of a young son on the autism spectrum. These twin elements are the Scylla and Charybdis of Experimental Film, and at no time did I feel that I was in the hands of anything less than a master of the weird, who was bent on showing me something I have never seen before, something I have never felt.Experimental Film is not brawny. It is not sketched in the muscular, three-color panels of the whiskey-soaked weird. It is grayscale, silver-tinted, with a flickering beam of terror that is sliced with a glittering shutter blade of midday sunlight forty-eight times every second. When you finally hear the end of the reel slapping against the projector, you’ll have to remind yourself to breathe.

The title of my review refers to how I read this book: picking out the colorful bits from a container of soggy, overdone mush. Great idea meshing old world folklore, moviemaking and the visual arts scene in modern Canada. What drags this book way down are the long digressions into the narrator’s relationship with her mother (that sound you hear is me flicking pages I didn’t read), repetitive descriptions of a child’s autistic behaviors, the flattest husband character ever (what a saint! Yawn), and very tedious long sections about the narrator’s numerous serious health issues, fainting spells, hospitalizations and not very interesting inner torments. Also not a fan of the Stephen King-influenced use of italics and parentheses. The author is talented and creative. She likely can do better with the help of sharp red pencils.

DNF. I found the story tedious and unnecessarily in love with itself. I'm obviously in the minority but I really didn't enjoy what I read of this book. It was well written and the writer is obviously talented, but the story itself just wasn't for me.

I don't want to say too much because I want people to discover this book for themselves. Just believe me when I say it's an awesome examination of Canadian culture, as well as an excellent 'ghost story' of sorts. I wish I could read this book again for the first time, it was so good.

I came to this book with high hopes, having enjoyed some of Gemma Files's short stories. Unfortunately, in novel form, her normal sure touch seems to desert her. The central story is intriguing enough, combining the threads of a decades old unsolved missing persons case, the discovery of a cache of mysterious film reels in the Canadian wilderness, and a looming supernatural threat torn from the pages of European folklore. The setting feels refreshingly real, and Lois, the narrator and central character, is well-drawn and, I suspect, at least semi-autobiographical.But the book has three connected problems. The first is the rest of the book's characters. They are as flimsy as ancient paper, sketched as lazy archetypes (in particular, Lois's husband, Simon, is so accepting that he appears saint-like compared to his troubled wife - this simplistic portrayal contrasts jarringly with the nuance associated with Lois's character) and lacking in meaningful motivations. They serve as background dressing for Lois's own adventures and it is impossible to care about them.The second problem is the rambling prose. This feels like a short story, or perhaps a novella, that was padded out. Discourses on film making and the Canadian film industry initially provide some interest and colour, but the novelty soon wears away. At first, I thought that the narrative was making a clever play on the concept of the "experimental film" - a disconnected, confusing series of images designed to bewilder the viewer - but this is not the case. The story is entirely conventional, and the rambling discourses feel like a way to bump the word length. By the second half of the book I was skim reading them.Finally, the story simply isn't especially unsettling. I can appreciate a subtle horror yarn - Gemma Files has proven herself adept at this type of work in her short stories - and at times here a sense of menace lingers at the edges of the prose, but as tension begins to build it is punctured by another discussion of the Canadian Film Board's policies or one of the paper-thin supporting cast appearing and delivering some wooden dialogue. There are few surprises or twists, and considering the story revolves around film, the imagery is disappointingly tame.Gemma Files is a very talented author but I was left disappointed by this book. I'll stick to her short stories for now.

A book that was very different to my expectations, but for the better!This is masterfully written and the characters seemed so real and fleshed out it was easy to forget that they are fictional.It’s unusually written for contemporary horror/weird fiction, as whilst the main character is cynical and pessimistic, sanguine light shines through and some understated humour.The horror is subtle and the plot is very strong and despite the fact that the main character is meant to be unlikeable I found that I could relate to her easily… I wonder what that says about my personality?!